Privilege

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Privilege

Sometimes I feel compelled to state the obvious, just so it is out
there explicitly. This is such as essay. The notion of privilege has caused so much human
misery, I thought I would like to dissect it.

Historically

A certain freedom and a certain equality passed out of human life when men ceased to
wander. Men paid in liberty and paid in toil, for safety, shelter and regular meals. By
imperceptibe degrees, the common man found the patch he cultivated was not his own; it
belonged to the god and he had to pay a fraction of his produce to the god. Or the god
had given it to the king, who exacted his rent and tax. Or the king had given it to an
official, who was the lord of the common man. And sometime the god or the king or the
noble had work to be done and then the common man had to leave his patch and work for
his master.
~ H. G. Wells(born:1866-09-21 died:1946-08-13 at age:79)The
Outline of History page 228.

Historically, as soon as populations grow to a certain size, they stratify.
An elite class forms. The entire society creates a myth to maintain the stability of the
elite. The Egyptians created the myth that their Pharaoh was a divine being. The Hindus
created the caste system supported by the myth of rebirth merit to justify the extreme
privilege of the Brahmins. The European nobility created the myth of their inherent
genetic bloodline superiority. The North Americans created the myth that those who had
wealth or who were children of those of wealth were superior people, harder working and
more intelligent.

Purpose

In earlier times, there was a benefit to society as a whole to have an
elite. Freed from manual labour, the elite had time to become literate, to study and to
invent. You will notice all the early inventors, scientists and philosophers were from
the privileged class. They were the only ones with sufficient free time and resources to
experiment.

Excess

Thorsten Veblen wrote a classic book about the silliness of the leisure
classesThorsten Veblem wrote a classic book about the silliness of the leisure classes
and their wasteful status displays.

Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock. Try looking for it with a bookfinder.

Originally, these antics were amusing, but today these
excesses are destroying the planet, as well and oppressing others to the point of murder.
Globalisation, international corporations and immense fortunes have made it possible for
elites to squeeze the rest of the population, especially the third world, as never
before.

Entitlement

One thing you can count on, is a member of an elite will never
question whether he deserves such status. He will tell the silliest lies to himself to
justify his privilege. But mostly he just takes it as a given, as part of the natural
flow of the universe and sunrises and sunsets. For example, North Americans who are the
global elite, believe they are hard done by when their incomes are still thousands of
times higher than those in the third world. They will tell you with straight face the
Chinese are lucky to find jobs in Nike sweat shops to make shoes for
$0.06 USD
an hour. They will tell you that
$0.50 USD
a day is too much to pay a man to grow and pick their coffee. An American believes his
country manages to consume 1/3 of the world resource pie with only 1/17 of the population
because Americans are more hard working. It never dawns on him that the reason the rest
of world hands over such a big share is that America commands a military bigger than all
other countries combined and has military bases spanning the globe.

Oddly, you find the non-elites equally enthusiastically supporting the privilege of
the elites. For example, in the USA, the majority of ordinary Americans voted Republican
in 2004, thus endorsing a tax holiday for the wealthy. Most
Britons are happy to fund the pomp of Queen Elizabeth.

Bottom Line

The bottom line is an elite is never aware that their status is both
undeserved and unfair. They always fight for ever greater privilege. Change comes, often
violently, when those denied even a bare livelihood to provide for luxuries for the
elite, put their feet down. This is harder than ever to do, since globalisation provides
the ultimate union-busting tool available, a planet of absolutely desperate scab labour.

Book referral for Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class — And What We Can Do about It

recommend book⇒Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class — And What We Can Do about It

This book is simple and somewhat repetitive. It argues five main points.

A vigorous middle class is essential for democracy.

Throughout history, the elites have done battle to eliminate the middle class and scoop all the wealth for themselves.

Starting with Reagan, the lower and middle classes in the USA have become poorer while the elite’s wealth has exploded into the stratosphere.

The elites tell all manner of lies to trick the middle class into giving up their power and wealth to the elites.

You have a choice:

government can run things, via representatives responsible to the people.

corporate CEOs can run things, responsible only to their shareholders.

When you consider the alternative, big government managing society does not look so bad.

Hartmann argues that historically the wealthy elite have always worked to eliminate the middle class and hence stomp out democracy. They can then run things for their own ultimate financial benefit. We are going through a period now where the middle class is collapsing as a result of the corporatocracy and wealth of the tiny elite at the top is exploding. Since they control the media, they spread all manner of myths that make people vote against their own self interest in favour of those of the elites.

The book also discusses how the war business hijacks government to provide it with endless streams of money for perpetual unnecessary war.

Online bookstores carrying Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class — And What We Can Do about It

The book explains the research that shows that equality, even more than economic growth, determines wellbeing. Equality improves health, lawfulness, civil participation and trust. The wealthiest citizen of the most equal countries are better off than the wealthiest citizens in the unequal countries like Britain and the USA. Further, inequality fosters consumerism and ecological destruction. At the time of writing this book has still not been published. I learned about it from a speech by Ed Broadbent, former leader of the NDP at the NDP convention in Halifax.

Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock. Try looking for it with a bookfinder.

According to Neil Brooks, the author of The Trouble With Millionaires in
Canada, in theory there is a progressive tax system so that the richer you are, the
higher the tax rate. However, there are so many loopholes, everyone pays almost the same
rate, with the poorest paying a slightly higher rate.

The glittering lives of billionaires may seem like a harmless source of entertainment. But such concentrated economic power reverberates throughout society, threatening the quality of life and the very functioning of democracy. It’s no accident that the United States claims the most billionaires — but suffers among the highest rates of infant mortality and crime, the shortest life expectancy, as well as the lowest rates of social mobility and electoral political participation in the developed world.

Our society tends to regard large fortunes as evidence of great talent or accomplishment. Yet the vast new wealth isn’t due to an increase in talent or effort at the top, but rather to changing social attitudes legitimizing greed and government policy changes that favour the new elite.